HimaAtava Mounrains. 193 
shewed that:this degive of accuracy could not be ‘attained: byiimyselft’ op 
Lieutenant Hergert, though Thad much larger‘and more perfect dstrit 
ments tham have hitherto;been used in the mountains, or in any. survey on! 
this side of India;.and both of us had much practise as observers. (When 
T had less experience, I was moreconfident as to the accuracy which E 
thought might be obtained from ¢elestial observations, freqtiently and Gare+ 
fully repeated; but now So far from being: ‘satisfied with surprisingly ‘close 
results, more close, than the Data’ and instruments ‘warrant, I incliné to 
consider them, the effects of'chance. 1 hold it to:be the part of a faithful 
observer, to s)e8 no observations, except where’ he is sure from some 
knows cause, that they are bad.’ It has been said; and I think with jus- 
tice, that when experienced observers, after taking all the’ pains and pre- 
cautions iti’ theit power, find themselves embarrassed by discrepancies: for 
which ‘they’ cantiot ‘account, they are probably onthe point of making’ 
some important discovery: at any rate though they may not be so for- 
tunate, they may by making a fair disclosure, enable others who may 
view the subject” in a more Happy point of view, to do so. ‘Even in 
the great English ‘trizonometrical survey we see that the latitudes 
of principal stations taken by different stars when under favorable 
circumstances, and with powerful zenith sectors of five and eight feet 
radius, have some times extreme differences of 8 or of 4 from the mean. 
Ours being taken with instruments of only six inches radius, and with tele- 
scopes of small power, may be expected to be much more discordant; of 
course they are so, but really not in proportion to the power of the, instru- 
ments. Reference to the table of 61 latitudes taken by me at Bellville, 
and the same number by Lieutenant zrserr, of stars on different sides 
